The fishing on the Mosquito Lagoon these last few weeks has been good. If you get out between these winter time cold fronts, the redfish have been cooperating quite nicely. Florida’s weather has continued to be some of the strangest I can remember, but large schools of Redﬁsh have been found all over the Indian River system this month. Black Drum also continue to make their presence known tailing happily most days.
My last week of trips have been spent in the Edgewater and New Smyrna Beach backcountry. Driving North winds have not allowed for much fishing the vast open flats of the middle lagoon, whereas these areas in the North end offer some protection behind the expanse of mangroves islands and oyster bars. Schools of redfish will congregate in these areas throughout the winter seeking refuge from the cold.
Chuck from Garmin GPS in Missouri joined me for a few days of redfishing and caught several nice ones fishing with soft plastics such as GULP Alive crabs and the live shrimp. If you choose to ﬁsh plastics or any artificial for that matter this week, be sure to slow down your presentations in colder weather. Mark and Larry from Ocala also did well using these same tactics with schools of large redfish on Monday.
The ﬂy ﬁshing has been good also these past few weeks. Accurate presentations and smaller patterns will still be the most productive. The most productive ﬂy of this week the Kwan and Dupree Spoon. Lionel from <acronym title="Connecticut">CT</acronym> caught his first redfish on fly this week! Congrats and nice job. All ﬁsh caught were photographed and released to ﬁght again!
Captain Mike Bales - Mosquito Lagoon Fishing Guide - Indian River Fishing Charter - Orlando Florida Redfish Guide - Captain Michael Bales of Hotfish Charters

The month of January has been interesting to say the least...With temperatures ranging
from 25-80 degrees on the Mosquito Lagoon and the surrounding area.. This has a
dramatic effect on how our inshore species will behave. Feeding aggressively in the
shallows during the warmest parts of the day, to sluggish and lethargic on those extra
cool mornings..Paying very close attention to water temperature is key when these
winter COLD fronts move through..Starting your trip a little later in the morning can
make all the difference..
Iʼll give you an example, the other day I ﬁshed a rather large school of redﬁsh on the
north end, these ﬁsh were a bit tricky to get to with the extremely low water, but with
some determined poling we reached them at about ten in the morning..(The outside air
temperature was a balmy 39 degrees) They were ﬂashing and churning in a vast white
sand spot with broken grass..My customers were able to catch a few ﬁsh casting Gulp
Alive and live shrimp,letting the lure fall slowly and just dead-sticking it. Sometimes not
moving the bait for 5-10 minutes Most of these ﬁsh were slot reds with a few 30” guys
mixed in. After a dozen bites, not hook-ups mind you, we moved to another
location..The ﬁsh were very slowly eating and some over-reactive hook-sets resulted in
a few missed ﬁsh..Two hours of talking ﬁshing, drinking coffee, and wishing for the sun
we moved to another location after landing 4 nice slot reds.
Two days later and 30 degrees warmer, I decided to check on those same slow and
lethargic ﬁsh..After poling in I noticed very FEW ﬁsh in the big depression, however the
were easily three or four dozen reds tailing in groups of 2-4 ﬁsh all over the grassy edge
about a foot shallower than the sand spot...These ﬁsh were responsive to a shrimp and
were eating with a fervor, sometimes slurping the shrimp off the surface as it was being
retrieved back to the boat making for some incredible surface takes.!! We managed to
boat 12 reds in less than an hour! The largest ﬁsh was right at 32”.
It just goes to show that matching your presentation to the ﬁsh AS well as conditions
and timing pays off! No matter what, life is short, GO FISHING!
Tight Lines and Stretched Leaders.

Happy New Year! The beautiful weather over this holiday week has made for some excellent fishing. The winter time low water levels have schooled up the redfish quite nicely with double digit catches not uncommon! There's also still good opportunities for the elusive black drum. Here are a few photos from this week's charters.